


Before You Leave This Home

by Nevanna



Category: X-Men Evolution
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-02
Updated: 2015-01-02
Packaged: 2018-03-05 00:40:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3098522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nevanna/pseuds/Nevanna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kitty's parents find out what she hasn't been telling them about life at the Xavier Institute.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before You Leave This Home

**Author's Note:**

> This fills the "forced to face fear" square for Hurt/Comfort Bingo 2014. It assumes canon knowledge through Episode 3.03, "Mainstream."
> 
> The title is from the song "The One Who Knows" by Dar Williams.

Terri Pryde was folding clothes in front of the television, and trying not to think about the latest argument with her husband, when a special report blared onto every news channel. 

A metal behemoth towered over a city street – like something out of the monster movies that she and her brother used to dare each other to watch – and several strange figures in skintight suits appeared to be fighting it. Later, she would find out that her co-workers and neighbors had assumed the same thing that she did at first: that they were watching some sort of publicity stunt.

When her daughter’s face filled the frame, she stood up abruptly and ran to find Carmen in his study, both the laundry and their fight forgotten. “It’s all over the Internet, too,” he said gravely, and followed her back downstairs. 

Together, they watched the story unfold. Terri saw the names and faces of Kitty and her friends flash across the screen. She heard them described as _freaks_ and _threats_ and, finally, _wanted fugitives_ , confirming everything that she had feared ever since the night that Kitty had collapsed into their arms and wailed, with sobs that shook her whole body, _“What am I?”_

\--

Terri managed not to cry from relief when Carmen handed her the phone and she heard their daughter’s voice. “Mom, I’m okay.” She couldn’t quite tell, but Kitty sounded like she was holding back tears of her own. “We all are.”

“I’m so glad, sweetheart. You don’t know how frightened I was for you.”

“I was frightened for me, too. I guess you heard what Ms. Munroe and Mr. McCoy had to say?”

“We saw it all.” It had left both Terri and Carmen with more questions than answers, and it took her a minute to decide which one she wanted to ask first. “What do you think is going to happen now?”

“We’re still living at the Institute… or, like, what’s left of it.” Kitty tried for one of her familiar giggles. “I don’t know if we’ll be able to go back to school. Or what’s going to happen if we do.”

“We’d also like to talk about…” Terri began. She met her husband’s eyes. “About your coming home. To stay.”

“I don’t think that things would be any easier if I did, you know? For me, or for you.”

“That’s what I thought you’d say.” Since her relocation to Bayville, Kitty had visited her parents at Chanukah, and during the summer. She’d chattered eagerly about her classes, about rehearsing for the school play, about wilderness survival training, and about her friends at the Xavier Institute, who had, in her own words, become like a second family to her. She had sounded happy, and so much more confident than she had ever been at her old high school.

Now, Terri thought back to the footage of the Institute after it had been reduced to rubble… and to a series of underground bunkers filled with deadly machinery. She wondered how much she _hadn’t_ been told.

\--

“She’s not going back there,” Carmen said firmly. “I don’t understand why this is even worth discussing. We both thought that she’d be safe at that place, but clearly, we were wrong.”

Two weeks ago, when Kitty had called to tell them that she and her friends had been re-admitted to Bayville High, they had arranged for her to come back to Northbrook for a weekend. Since she had arrived home, they hadn’t mentioned the parts of her life that she’d kept hidden, and Terri wasn’t sure who was dreading that conversation the most. “She still thinks that she’d be safer there than she would be here.”

“Those X-Men had Kitty risking her life on a regular basis,” Carmen reminded her. “Xavier’s house was equipped to _kill_ people.”

“Her powers protect her…"

“From _physical_ attacks, and sometimes not even that. Aside from which, we never had the slightest idea what she doing, or what she was becoming. If she stays with us - "

Terri had harbored similar thoughts, on the nights when she had trouble falling asleep, but she tried not to dwell on them now. “Then you can keep an eye on her?” She fought to keep her voice down. “Is that what you were going to say?”

“We’re not talking about a nose piercing, or a road trip, or her deciding to date some hoodlum. We’re talking about a man who recruited impressionable children into some kind of private army. For all we know, he could have coerced them into lying to their parents about it.”

Once again, Terri chose her words carefully. “We don’t know for sure what Xavier was doing…”

“That’s my whole point!”

“But you tried to hold Kitty back when she first learned that she could walk through walls,” she finished, “and it almost ended horribly for all of us.”

\--

“I heard you and Dad last night,” Kitty said the next morning. She had already been sitting at the table, staring out the window, when her mother stepped into the kitchen. “Is he really going to make me leave the Institute?”

“Nothing is decided yet.” Terri set aside the kettle and sat down across from her. “Kitty, dearest, about your activities with… with the X-Men…”

Kitty rolled her eyes. “Oh, boy, here it comes.”

“I know that your friends are important to you, but we were upset that you didn’t tell us the whole truth… and now we’re more concerned about what your life is going to be like.” So many of Kitty’s classmates in Northbrook had been jealous and cruel. Now, she had to face that same cruelty on a much larger scale. Carmen hadn’t needed to remind Terri that not all aggression was, or would be, physical. She already knew.

“Yeah, I think we might be a little _concerned_ about that too?” Kitty said. Then her voice softened. “I’m really sorry that I didn’t tell you. I was scared that you’d… do something like this, I guess.”

“I’m not sure that we wouldn’t have,” Terri said honestly. “But I do know that you’re still in one piece because of what you learned at the Institute, and a lot of other people are safer, too.” She hesitated. “Would you like to tell me more about it now?”

Kitty considered this for a moment, then began to speak. A few minutes later, Carmen joined them, standing silently in the doorway with his arms folded. 

As she listened, Terri reached across the table and took her daughter’s hand, knowing that she would have to let go sooner rather than later.


End file.
